Building Adaptive Fisheries Governance Capacity: Can adaptive governance improve fisheries management?
Dyna Mapeto and Nevarson Msusa of the Community Outreach Unit of the Malawi College of Fisheries worked with the project team in Malawi and fishing communities to produce a short film introducing the idea and relevance of adaptive fisheries governance.
Please watch the video and read the blog below for further insights on adaptive fisheries governance authored by Professor Fiona Nunan, Professor of Environment and Development at the University of Birmingham.
Malawi and Uganda are both hosts of Great Lakes of Africa, being Lake Malawi and, in Uganda, lakes Victoria, Albert and Edward. Lakes Malawi and Victoria in particular are significant water bodies, with Lake Victoria being the second largest freshwater body in the world and Lake Malawi the fourth. Inland fisheries therefore make a significant contribution to food security, livelihoods and government revenue in both countries.
Given such dependence on lake fisheries, there is significant fishing pressure, evident in the number of fishers, boats and gears, leading to declining stocks and degraded lake ecosystems. Use of illegal gears, often using nets and hooks that can catch smaller fish, and methods are also contributing to this decline in stocks and degraded shoreline habitats.
Due to concerns that government doesn’t have the capacity to effectively manage fisheries on its own and also due to recognition that resource users can play an important role in fisheries management, both countries adopted a co-management approach to governing the fisheries from the 1990s. A co-management approach to governance means that resource users, and sometimes others, such as the private sector and NGOs, are involved in decision-making with government. The introduction of co-management often involves the formation of structures to facilitate community involvement. In Malawi, this involved the formation of Beach Village Committees (BVCs) and in Uganda, Beach Management Units (BMUs).
In both countries, the performance of co-management has been patchy over time, with some BVCs and BMUs being more effective than others. Both countries have experienced debates and challenges, including about which powers and functions are shared by government, how the systems are financed and how illegal fishing, linked to bribery and corruption, undermine trust and accountability. In Uganda, the co-management system was suspended in late 2015, with an interim system put in place. The 2022 Fisheries and Aquaculture Act, however, commits the government to establishing fisheries co-management committees at all levels and in Malawi, a new fisheries policy is currently being finalised.
The Building Adaptive Fisheries Governance Capacity project is therefore timely for both countries, providing an assessment of governance capacity to inform the strengthening of co-management whilst also investigating how fisheries governance can better respond to the challenges of climate change.
How can adaptive governance build on the co-management experience?
To assess adaptive fisheries governance capacity, the project developed a framework that brings together insights from literature on natural resource governance, adaptive governance, fisheries and climate change, ecosystem-based approaches to fisheries management and methods and frameworks for assessing governance capacity. The framework was finalised at national multi-stakeholder workshops held in Malawi and Uganda with inputs from government, representatives of fishing communities and NGOs.
The theory and practice of adaptive governance puts a lot of emphasis on recognising different sources of knowledge (e.g. local and traditional, as well as scientific) and using knowledge and new information to make timely changes to management measures and practices. In this way, governance should be better informed and more responsive to change.
Assessing the capacity for adaptive fisheries governance also provides the opportunity to investigate how fisheries governance and management can be more holistic and integrated, i.e. take more account of the impacts of destructive fishing methods on the lake ecosystem and assess how biodiversity could be better protected and restored. The assessment has also involved studying the resourcing and performance of the existing governance systems, and how inclusive and fair the systems are, in particular for women and more marginalised groups.
Our assessment has involved interviews, focus group discussions, transect walks and document analysis, all carried out at national level, with district local governments and with a sample of communities at two lakes in each country, lakes Chilwa and Malawi in Malawi and lakes Victoria and Kyoga in Uganda.
Initial findings from the assessment have identified challenges in sustaining information generation, use and sharing, tackling the prevalence of fishing illegalities, a key driver of biodiversity loss in the lakes, and how a more integrated approach to fisheries governance could be developed.
Over the coming months, the project team will continue to work with government, fishing communities and NGOs to review the data and identify how governance can be strengthened, biodiversity better protected and capacity to cope with climate change improved. Through this, we will help develop plans and guidelines that will be shared with other sectors and countries, to inform the development of more integrated, responsive and inclusive governance approaches for fisheries and other natural resources across the world.
With additional funding from the International Science Partnerships Fund, a short video has been produced on the project in Malawi which provides a great introduction to the fisheries of Malawi and to adaptive fisheries governance. In Uganda, an edition of The Fisher newspaper was sponsored by the project with the same additional funding, with hard copies of the newspaper distributed to district fisheries offices and fishing communities across Uganda.
You can review the newspaper here
